Am I Becoming Racist? (rant)

[GT5Junkie]

Laws are by definition rules that apply to everyone equally

Wrong. Laws do not apply to everyone equally, and there's nothing inherent in the definition that says that. Laws vary based on age (don't see a lot of 12 year olds with drivers licenses). Based on religion (peyote use). Based on gender (AA also includes women). Based on race. And the law that you're complaining about favoring minorities wouldn't be necessary if there hadn't been OTHER laws which also did not apply to everyone equally, screwing that minority group in the process. It also wouldn't be necessary if there weren't currently people violating the law that says you have to treat people equally.

 

[Danoff]

Wrong. Laws do not apply to everyone equally, and there's nothing inherent in the definition that says that. Laws vary based on age (don't see a lot of 12 year olds with drivers licenses). Based on religion (peyote use). Based on gender (AA also includes women). Based on race. And the law that you're complaining about favoring minorities wouldn't be necessary if there hadn't been OTHER laws which also did not apply to everyone equally, screwing that minority group in the process. It also wouldn't be necessary if there weren't currently people violating the law that says you have to treat people equally.

Ignoring the issue of children for a moment, if laws do not apply equally to everyone, they violate the principle of equal protection listed in the bill of rights. Jim Crow laws violated this principle, and they are gone. Law based on religion mix church and state (big nono). Laws based on race or gender violate equal protection (big nono).

Laws based on age stem from the fundamental reasoning behind human rights to begin with. Human beings acquire rights as they develop because they are able to observe the rights of others as they develop. This is a necessary consequence of rights.

 

[Blank_Redge]

There is a point in this, but I do believe you are expressing it in a way people will not understand.

There is a xenophobe reaction in everyone, you will always be careful with something you do not know, that can be a different skin colour, that can be a different way of dressing (punk, suits,... ), that can be a handicap, etc...

To treat people different on this basis is the thing that is wrong and not everyone does it wrong. But you need to fight the first reactions, even the most tolerant person does.

====================

On the different price for different ethnical groups, there would indeed be a problem if you set a different price for the same service just based on ethical (although you should have the freedom to do it).
If you know for example that some people will come back to ask for free services (training, repair, cleaning, ....) and it is better to include the services in the original offer, it is cultural awareness, you offer something different, so the price is different (no matter if it is documented or not).

For example the thread: McDonald's bans tracksuits
They perceive an extra cost with people that are dressed in a certain way and refuse them. Is this the best solution? I don't know, but it is their right to solve their issues.

On cultural awareness: people born in the same culture, going to the same schools, etc... they are not of a different culture. But treating with a service center in India, from Europe we use different communication, since they are different. Our vision is that they do good work, we send them more and more work, but they still work differently. Ignoring that they are different, sounds more politically correct, but just makes your actions ineffective.

On positive discrimination, a business should take the best person for the job, at equivalent capabilities, positive discrimination can help balancing your workforce, but putting people in front for properties (like race) that are not relevant to the job is something you should be very careful with (both ways). Luck egalitarianism is theory only, it does matter where you were born and I believe it always will, positive discrimination will only make this less and less if you promote the capable in the position they deserve.

If I want to sell to any Japanese car manufacturer in Europe, I will recruit a Japanese sales person, because almost no European can treat the client I want to reach correctly. You could call this racist, but it is business wise needed.

Eh. I dunno, Vince; I think we're sailing into semantic waters.

If I've repeatedly dealt with customers from Culture A, in the lovely region of Country B, I should hope that, over a period of time, I've learned what is and is not acceptable cultural and business practices.

Could this be called cultural insight? Cultural savvy, even? I think so.

Am I "pre-judging" them? That is to say: am I prejudiced towards them? I think this is where we get into the murky, grey waters of semantics.

The word "prejudice" is commonly accepted as a negative descriptive. As long as I'm not thinking of Culture A in negative terms, I don't think it's reasonable to say that I'm either prejudiced or racist towards them.

However, if I were, I think it would then be fair to identify me as prejudiced.

 

[W3H5]

Anyone who judges people by their racial origins is a racist. Wikipedia would probably have a better definition than that, but yeah.

I agree with this but it would seem many large country governments do not.
I'm not picking sides here, I don't consider myself a racist. I'm stating some facts about race discrimination.

Ex.1 In England (my home country) a possitive effort is made to employ non-white workers because the government has a quota to fill for non-white/ethnic minority workers in sectors such as the emergency services.
This means a lesser skilled non-white worker could get the job over somebody of white origin because of equality quotas.
This in effect means that if my house was on fire and I was inside, the guy on the fire rescue team is not necessarily the best man/woman for the job. That's people lives I'm talking about.
I personally have been told, politely (by a potential employer), that because of my race I lose out on gaining the job I applied for because another applicant of another race, with almost equal qualifications, experiance and so on was going to be able to build up the company's tally of non-native worker.
In my view the tatics the government had used to help foreign/non-white gain employment was by using their race as the deciding factor.
According to the quote above (no disrespect intended to you), the English government are/were racist.
Some times people/organisation try so hard to not be racist that they actually are (towards either the native or non native in this case). I like to call this reverse racism.
I hope this post makes sense I was in a bit of a rush but wanted to put my point out there.

 

[Blank_Redge]

I like to call this reverse racism.

That term always struck me as odd. "Reverse" racism.

Racism is racism, imo. There shouldn't be a different set of criteria for racism, just because it's being applied to the majority.

 

[Joel]

That term always struck me as odd. "Reverse" racism.

Racism is racism, imo. There shouldn't be a different set of criteria for racism, just because it's being applied to the majority.

This is a very important point. To call it "almost reverse racism" is just white guilt.

Affirmative action is racism, no other adjectives required.

 

[W3H5]

Affirmative action is racism, no other adjectives required.

This was going to be my second example of governments being racist but I don't know enough about it and choose not to use it.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

2 discussions caught my attention recently:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/
Conclusion: DNA differences are minimal and irrelevant to essential characteristics, so our races (which we do see) do not link with other characteristics some want to link to them.

Males are 99.9% the same when compared to other males, and females are as well when compared to other females, but males and females are only 98.5% equal to each other – outside of the X and Y chromosomes. The genetic difference between men and women is 15 times greater than between two men or two women. In fact, it’s equal to that of men and male chimpanzees.
Conclusion: DNA differences between all women of all races are minimal, compared to gender DNA differences.

 

[Danoff]

2 discussions caught my attention recently:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-genetics-science-africa/
Conclusion: DNA differences are minimal and irrelevant to essential characteristics, so our races (which we do see) do not link with other characteristics some want to link to them.

Males are 99.9% the same when compared to other males, and females are as well when compared to other females, but males and females are only 98.5% equal to each other – outside of the X and Y chromosomes. The genetic difference between men and women is 15 times greater than between two men or two women. In fact, it’s equal to that of men and male chimpanzees.
Conclusion: DNA differences between all women of all races are minimal, compared to gender DNA differences.

I'm pretty sure you just called either men or women monkeys... and I'm pretty sure I know which is gonna be the monkey.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

I'm pretty sure you just called either men or women monkeys... and I'm pretty sure I know which is gonna be the monkey.

I was quoting research, but indeed, the DNA difference between 2 individuals of different human gender is as big as that with an APE (do not call them monkeys) of the same gender (it seems).

So that there is a difference in DNA does not matter as much as which DNA is different? The other argument is maybe colour is not a sufficient relevant attribute to call the character different, since there were several independent mutations of a limited amount of genes which lead to this colour difference.

 

[Danoff]

APE (do not call them monkeys)

That was part of the joke.